Court Mistakenly Thinks Copyright Owners Have a Duty to Police Infringement–Sunny Factory v. Chen
Fuxi, the putative copyright owner, has a registration for an image of printed sage leaves (the left image): The alleged infringer, the Sunny Factory, sells the candles on the right on Amazon. Fuxi’s lawyer, Haoyi Chen of Arch & Lake,…
First Circuit Says Mirroring Qualifies for Section 230–Monsarrat v. Newman
I previously blogged this case last year. I summarized the facts: This case involves a LiveJournal community (the Davis Square community for Somerville, MA). In 2017, LiveJournal changed its policies. In response, Newman, the community moderator, copied all of the…
Justice Thomas Really, REALLY Wants Section 230 Repealed (Even If He Has to Do It Himself)
The Supreme Court denied certiorari in Doe v. Facebook, a FOSTA case. The Texas Supreme Court held that FOSTA excluded some claims from Section 230 (disregarding the statutory language Congress adopted), while other claims remain preempted by Section 230. The…
Section 230 Doesn’t Apply to Publication of Private Emails–Crowley v. Faison
Faison runs the Sacramento chapter of Black Lives Matter (BLM). She received several racist and offensive emails from an email address purporting to be Karra Crowley. Faison posted the emails to BLM’s Facebook page and identified Karra as the sender….
Section 230 Immunizes TikTok for User-Posted Videos–Day v. TikTok
Day discovered videos on TikTok of her 2-year-old daughter being abused. That’s horrifying, but the opinion doesn’t address the many obvious followup questions, such as: where was the daughter during the abuse? who was abusing the daughter? was that person…
Section 230 Protects Google for Including Telegram In Its App Store–Ginsberg v. Google
The plaintiffs claim that violent extremists, anti-Semites, haters, and other malefactors use Telegram, and thus its availability in the Google Play Store violates Google’s Developer Guidelines. This is yet another remix of the old Noah v. AOL case, where a…
So Many Unanswered Empirical Questions About FOSTA
I read an article, “Sex Trafficking and Technology: A Systematic Review of Recruitment and Exploitation,” by Lindsay B. Gezinski & Kwynn M. Gonzalez-Pons (unfortunately paywalled). They did a comprehensive and systematic review to identify empirical studies that bear on online…
Another Problematic FOSTA Ruling–Doe v. Pornhub
A few observations from reading numerous FOSTA cases: sex trafficking victim cases are horrifying. courts cannot figure out how to interpret FOSTA. due to FOSTA’s ambiguities, judges are turning to judicial activism to favor victims regardless of the law. the…
Constituents Can Sue Chicago Alderman for Blocking Their Facebook Comments–Czosnyka v. Gardiner
James Gardiner is Alderman for Chicago’s 45th district. Six of his constituents allege that they were blocked from engaging with Gardiner’s Facebook page or their comments were hidden/deleted. They sued him for First Amendment violations. Gardiner made the weak argument…
Another Court Says Facebook Isn’t a State Actor–McWaters v. Houston
McWaters was arrested for allegedly sexually abusing a minor, but the grand jury didn’t issue an indictment. He sued various defendants for publicizing the accusations. Among others, he sued Facebook for allegedly engaging in discriminatory content moderation in violation of…